The secret strife of bees

Not long before Christmas,
­Beech­worth Honey
vanished from the shelves of China’s high-end­­ ­supermarkets.

The famous Australian brand, which hails from a hamlet just south of the NSW-Victorian border, has been acclaimed as a shining example of the premium products that will help deliver new riches to Australia from China’s rapidly expanding middle class, as it demands higher quality food.

The disappearance of Beechworth Honey had nothing to with quality of the product. Like many Australian brands – from Jurlique skincare products through to Tim Tam biscuits – Chinese consumers can’t get enough of it. The problems is quantity – drought and bushfires in south-eastern Australia have wiped out up to 30 per cent of the bee population.

Such was the intensity of last summer’s heatwave, some commercial hives actually melted. As a result, production from Australia’s biggest honey processors has fallen 50 per cent.

Even the normally cool climate of Tasmania, which has developed a lucrative market for its unique leatherwood honey, has felt the pain.

“We haven’t had the heatwaves of Victoria, but the weather has affected the number of blossoms and production is down," said
Todd Hendriks
, a senior client manager with Tasmania’s Department of Economic Development.

“Volumes are down across the whole industry."

Australia’s only publicly listed honey producer,
Capilano
, is also under pressure. Managing director
Ben McKee
said the past season had been the “worst year on record", with dry weather at key flowering times. “That has dramatically influenced the health of bees and their ability to produce honey," he said.

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Dr McKee said Capilano’s production would fall by at least 50 per cent, with the company importing honey from its plant in Argentina, as well as Canada and Europe, as well as China for some orders, so it can continue to supply its international customers, which account for about 25 per cent of its business.

Domestically, Capilano has removed some of its larger packs of honey from supermarket shelves and consolidated its range to continue to supply Australian honey.

A particularly tough year

As with all agricultural industries, honey producers are used to seasonal variations, but this year has been particularly bad. As a result, it’s not just honey producers that are under pressure.

Insects are responsible for pollinating an estimated 76 per cent of the world’s main crop species, with the honey bee by far the most efficient worker.

According to Beechworth Honey’s owner and director,
Jodie Goldsworthy
, without bees the food bowl would shrink to “some grains, fish and grapes, that’s about it".

“Even our proteins, meats – any of our grazing animals graze predominantly on European-derived pasture grasses like clovers and lucerne, which are highly dependent on honey bee pollination," she said.

The almond industry, for one, is highly dependent on bees for pollination.

According to the latest ABS data, it produced $331 million worth of nuts in 2012. To do so it used about 180,000 bee hives in the process.

Paul Thompson
, the managing director of Australia’s biggest listed nut producer
Select Harvests
said the bee shortage had been “reflected more in the price" of bee hives.

“The cost of importing the bees has gone up," Mr Thompson said, adding that his company buys about two hives an acre.

“There are probably other crops that are less profitable that would be more impacted. It’s a true supply and demand marketplace importing bees."

Bee broker
Trevor Monson
, of Monson’s Honey & Pollination in Mildura, said in the past year Australia’s honey bee population had fallen 20 to 30 per cent.

“It has been a difficult year in Victoria and southern New South Wales, but because we source bees from as far away as Queensland at this particular point in time, and I’ve fingers crossed, I think we’re going to be OK," Mr Monson said.

But he said beekeepers still had to get through the winter, which was an unknown. “If we come in with a really unseasonable, bitterly wet, cold winter then we could come out the other end worse than we are anticipating at the moment."

Foreign invaders threaten biosecurity

The decline in bee numbers has come at a time when the third Parliamentary inquiry in the past six years has been launched about Australia’s beekeeping and pollination.

Much of its attention is focused on the ever-present threat of the bloodsucking varroa mite entering Australia.

Australia’s Food and Grocery ­Council warned in its submission to the inquiry that the food ­manufacturing sector could face a ­partial collapse if the parasite crossed our shores. The varroa mite, which originated in Japan and Korea in the 1950s, has infected every country except Australia.

Mat Lumalasi
and
Vanessa Kwiatkowski
, owners of the social enterprise Rooftop Honey, gave up their IT jobs four years ago to turn their backyard hobby into a business and raise awareness about bees. They now operate 73 hives in Melbourne’s city and inner fringe.

As well as raising awareness levels, the pair are working with the Victoria Department of Environment and Primary Industries to try and detect the varroa mite.

“We’ve been told it’s a matter of when and not if," Lumalasi says.

The council said the nation’s food bowl was heavily reliant on the honey bee. “The Australian food manufacturing sector would therefore lose the sources of many ingredients used in manufacturing if the honey bee industry in Australia were to go into decline.

“It is possible that alternative sources of ingredients could be found overseas but this would require substantial adjustment of the food manufacturing sector. Costs of production would invariably rise, potentially resulting in the complete closure of the manufacturing of some products in Australia as companies seek more cost-efficient and competitive manufacturing environments offshore."

The varroa mite, which spread to New Zealand in 2000, has wiped out feral bee colonies worldwide. Industry participants say Australia’s biosecurity policy isn’t strong enough to keep it out.

This is a problem because the Australian pollination services is worth about $2 billion a year to the national economy, with much of that value from feral honey bees, according to the 2008 Parliamentary inquiry.

That inquiry recommended the federal government spend $50 million a year to tighten biosecurity and provide more research to support Australia’s beekeeping industry.

But Beechworth Honey’s Jodie Goldsworthy says the federal government has so far tipped in $60,000, with beekeepers and other pollination dependent industries spending $75,000 each to protect the country against the mite.

A spokesman for Agriculture Minister
Barnaby Joyce
said the honey bee industry will benefit from $600 million allocated for Australia’s biosecurity services this financial year.

“The Department of Agriculture maintains effective quarantine and biosecurity measures .... while managing the risks to the environment and animal, plant and human health, including to honey bees," the spokesman said.

He said the Commonwealth, with state and territory governments, have invested a combined $132,000 on a two-year bee pest surveillance program which expires in June 2015.

But Ms Goldsworthy said that was not enough.

‘Not good enough’: Goldsworthy

“In Australia we have accepted a defeatist position," she said. “For politicians it’s the easiest and cheapest option to say ‘it’s not if we get it [varroa] but when we get it’. Quite frankly I don’t think that’s good enough.

“I’ll be perfectly be blunt about the situation, we will all live without honey. That’s not a problem we will find something else sweet to put on our cereal or toast. But we will not necessarily live with the quality of life that we enjoy and the diversity of foods that we currently enjoy without bees."

Ms Goldsworthy isn’t the only one calling for more government funding for biosecurity measures against varroa.

The CSIRO said in its submission that the threat to “Australia’s beekeeping and pollination service, and as a result our agricultural industry, is real".

It said funding for ongoing biosecurity and research to support crop pollination and bee health was “fragmented and limited".

“Australian agriculture is vulnerable to declines in honey bees. It has been accustomed to a high level of free service from feral honey bees, and a number of our most significant horticulture crops rely on honey bee pollination," the CSIRO said.

Australia’s leading scientific research agency said that the recent arrival of the Asian bee was a “reminder that our biosecurity control at the border is never absolute".

“The honey production industry is more than willing to tackle the biosecurity threats posed, but is too small to provide the level of resources required to place Australia in a strong position to mitigate the impacts of the establishment of pests like varroa."

Ms Goldsworthy said since the first Parliamentary inquiry in 2008 the number of commercial beekeepers in Australia had fallen from about 2000 to 1400.

She said the latest inquiry was the last hope to save the honey bee industry.

“It will be three strikes and we’re out or three strikes and we get some changes in terms of government policy," Ms Goldsworthy said.

“We’re at the point now that if we get through this inquiry and if we don’t get any sensible recommendations which are actually picked up and funded . . . I just dread to think."